Summary

Our trip is primarily scientific in nature, and will be exploring various regions in the High Arctic for fossil remains of plants and animals. Our primary research goal is to learn more about global climate change and how it has changed in the past and may change in the future. Our party is made up of 11 members, all of whom have previous palaeontological field experience, and several of whom have previous Arctic experience. Our expedition will last for approximately one month, with most of the time spent actively hiking and searching for new fossil bearing localities. From June 24th to July 27th 2006, we will be traveling to Ellesmere, Cameron and Melville Islands in Nunavut, Canada, all of which are several hundred kilometres away from the nearest permanent structures. These locations are also near or above the Arctic Circle, and so we will be experiencing close to 24-hour daylight. Introduction and Background The Canadian Arctic is an extremely vast and relatively unexplored region in general, and especially in reference to paleontology. The existence of fossils in the region was first discovered in 1853, yet since this time, very little palaeontological exploratio